AV Rant Listener Roland —

saved Rob H.’s sanity by finding a fix for Google Talk’s automatic microphone input level adjustment!

Please note, this is for Windows, so I’m not sure about you Mac (and Linux) users out there. But for us Windows people:

1) Close your web browser and webcam software.
2) open regedit.exe, and navigate to…
3) HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google\Google Talk Plugin
4) Change the value of “audio-flags” to 1.
5) Close regedit.
6) Now give it a whirl!

So nice to be able to set the microphone level where I want it and leave it there without stupid Google Talk changing it on me! Thanks, Roland!

AV Rant Listener Eric M. —

sent us a link to the Wikipedia article on Ambiophonics, which included the crazy speaker setup that literally had a wall in front of the listener separating the left and right sides of the room so that the left ear would only hear the left speaker, and the right ear would only hear the right speaker.

Tom was disappointed that the wall shown in the image didn’t include a cut-out for the listener’s nose :p

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambiophonics

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zff1f42yf1u3cqz/image001.jpg

AV Rant Listener Alex S. —

wanted to recommend the Radiolab Podcast:

http://www.radiolab.org/series/podcasts/

A while back, they talked about how humans and other trichromats perceive color. It’s a very interesting topic, to be sure, and Alex also sent along to the Wikipedia article on trichromacy for all of us to read and enjoy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trichromacy

AV Rant Listener and Staff Writer for Audioholics Steve Munz —

sent us a link to his article that delves into greater technical detail on the topics of speaker impedance, electrical phase angle, and what makes a given speaker “easier” or “harder” to “drive”:

http://www.audioholics.com/loudspeaker-design/understanding-impedance-electrical-phase

Steve mentioned he was aided in writing that article by Rod Elliott from Elliott Sound Products, which is an excellent resource for DIY projects and supplies:

http://sound.westhost.com/

AV Rant Listener Paul B. —

was looking for some genuine 7.1 channel content. We weren’t a whole lot of help this past week in terms of suggesting sources of 7.1 channel music, but for anyone who might want to quickly track down 7.1 channel soundtracks of Blu-ray movies, one great resource is Blu-ray Stats:

http://www.blu-raystats.com/Stats/Stats.php

You can use their dropdown menus to filter almost every available Blu-ray title out there!

AV Rant Listener Ray Coronado —

tipped us about the ridiculously low prices at which Seiki’s 4K UHDTVs are currently selling:

http://www.amazon.com/Seiki-SE50UY04-50-Inch-120Hz-HDTV/dp/B00BXF7I9M/

We also talked about Seiki’s U-Vision HDMI cables. They include a Marseille brand 4K upscaling chip inside the HDMI cable itself! It’s a bit of a crazy solution that really shouldn’t be necessary. But since Seiki originally skimped so much on the upscalers built into their first 4K televisions, they decided to put a better chip in an HDMI cable and sell it as an add-on:

http://www.amazon.com/Seiki-SU4KC1-U-Vision-Converting-Cable/dp/B00IE5C6LO/

AV Rant Listener Jefferson G. —

wants to hang some speakers from his ceiling. The key is for them to be able to support a good amount of weight so that decent sized speakers can be used, and for the brackets to be white or as unobtrusive visually as possible.

We had a couple of suggestion:

Axiom Audio ceiling brackets: http://axiomaudio.com/full-metal-ceiling-bracket

OmniMount ceiling bracket: http://www.omnimount.com/products/speaker_mounts_and_stands/speaker_mounts/stainless_steel_series/20.0_c/

AV Rant Listener Jefferson G. —

also asked for suggestions of speakers that might sonically match well with his existing Atlantic Technology 450 THX setup.

Rob H. offered the following:

– Ascend Acoustics HTM-200 SE speakers: http://ascendacoustics.com/pages/products/speakers/htm200/htm200.html

– In-Ceiling Atlantic Technology speakers: http://www.atlantictechnology.com/products/wall-ceiling-speakers/

– M&K Sound speakers: http://www.mksound.com/

And Tom suggested:

– NHT speakers: http://www.nhthifi.com/Bookshelf-Speakers

For AV Rant Listener Jefferson G. —

Tom also had an excellent suggestion, which was to try getting in touch with Vance Dickason.

Vance has been designing speakers for decades, and Jefferson’s Atlantic Technology 450 THX speakers are one of Vance’s designs!

Vance’s speakers tend to all sound far more alike than different, so talking to the man himself might result in some excellent suggestions.

Vance Dickason is currently affiliated with Lion AV Consultants, so hopefully, it might be possible to get in touch with him there:

http://lionav.com/new/?page_id=170

AV Rant Listener Shane T. —

wanted to discuss the Haas Effect, also known as the Precedence Effect.

Wikipedia covers it quite well:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haas_effect

But for even more details, check out “The Birth of the Array”:

http://www.gtaust.com/filter/08/07.shtml